Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu addresses Congress

Netanyahu tells congress Israel has historically acted in its own interests against American advice; Boehner pledges Congress will never let Jewish state ‘stand alone.’

By Herb Keinon, JERUSALEM POST CORRESPONDENT
03/07/2012 00:39

WASHINGTON – Citing historical precedents in which the US and Israel did not see eye-to-eye and Israel acted according to its own perception of its interests, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu told congressional leaders Tuesday that Israel viewed things differently than the US did at times, because it was not a global power and was more vulnerable.

Israeli sources said Netanyahu, meeting congressional leaders before flying back to Israel Tuesday evening, noted that David Ben-Gurion declared independence against the advice of the US; Levi Eshkol launched a preemptive attack in 1967, against Washington’s counsel; and Menachem Begin decided to bomb the Iraqi nuclear reactor in 1981 despite US opposition.

America has global interests, while Israel is “on the ground and more vulnerable,” Netanyahu said in reference to Iran, saying that this made for a very different perspective.

A very different perspective! While the United States has global interests, Iran does not pose an existential threat to the United States; if Iran succeeds in building nuclear weapons, she would pose an existential threat to Israel.

This is not to say that the United States has never faced an existential threat. Russia has enough nuclear weapons, mounted on sophisticated delivery systems, to turn this country into a radioactive black hole in the ground. And while Russia seems like more of a remote threat now than the old Soviet Union was, the threat still persists.

But Americans really know very little about existential threats. The threat of a sudden Soviet nuclear attack, which was always possible, was still a sort of unrealistic, hazy, implausible, and just plain unreal thing. I am old enough to remember nuclear attack drills in kindergarten, where the teachers would have us scramble under our desks, on the red mats on which we’d take our daily kindergarten naps, but those were back in 1958, when Nikita Sergeievich Khrushchev was Premier and Cпутник was our new orbiting moon. For Americans, the existential threat was always just a threat, something never carried out, and something very unlikely to ever be carried out.

For the Israelis, an existential threat is all too real, because the Jews have faced a real, actual attempt to kill every last one of them, and though now quite elderly, there are still Holocaust survivors living in Israel. Even after the end of the Third Reich and the liberation from the concentration camps, the recovering Jews still faced real opposition in their attempt for form a new state, not just from the hostile Arabs in the Levant, but from the British, who, fearing the Arab reaction if too many Jewish refugees were allowed into the Levant, threw many of them into the Atlit detainee camp. Israel was formed again not by peaceful Jewish refugees from the devastation of Europe, but by an armed struggle against the British Mandatory Authority. This is part of the history that every Israeli child learns, is part of the culture that every Israeli knows, and is still attested to by some of the now very elderly men, and women, who fought for Israeli independence.

We Americans don’t understand the Arabs, and cannot see the appeal that political Islam has for Muslims in the Middle East. The Israelis, being much closer to Western civilization than the Arabs, are a people with whom we can more closely identify. But if we more closely identify with them, many of the Israelis really are cultural strangers to us. While we can kind of, sort of picture the Israeli settlers as analogous to our Western pioneers, they were actually quite different, rarely safe, scratching out an existence in a barren land, surrounded by hostile natives who could not be driven far off, and with the women just as responsible for the defense of the community as the men.

The Israelis are somewhat closer to us than the Arabs, culturally speaking, but only somewhat. When Prime Minister Netanyahu notes that Israel has gone its own way on certain issues of critical importance to them, it has often been because the Israelis believed there was no other choice. Some Americans believe that the Israelis ought to be willing to take chances for peace; that is easy to say when your country is safe and secure behind 3,000 miles of blue water. When your country is a small nation, one that can be driven across in an hour, it may not seem that there is a lot of room to take chances.
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Cross Posted on THE FIRST STREET JOURNAL.

3 Responses to “Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu addresses Congress”

[…] that there is a lot of room to take chances. _____________________________________ Cross posted on Truth Before Dishonor. Filed under Foreign Affairs Tagged attack Iran nuclear weapons program, Israel, […]

Truth Before Dishonor is a Pro-Israel website. We have a page declaring such, which is an incomplete version of the article and following comments (and editors who posted comments on the article but didn’t update the Pro-Israel page, shame on you). The US has not always been the most friendly toward Israel, to the United States’ detriment as well as to Israel’s detriment, but I can say with absolute certainty that at least one author on this site has always been pro-Israel. I have been pro-Israel since the mid-70s and only became an adult in time to re-elect the 20th Century’s greatest POTUS, Ronald Wilson Reagan, of course.

I am also an End Times Prophecy believer. I know the End Times Prophecy is an undeniable fact as much as I know Adonai is an undeniable fact, as much as I know the sun has risen from the East (by earthbound perspective) since history began. I know there will come a time (and I believe it is alarmingly soon) that Israel will look like a total lost cause and nothing but a miracle will save it from the annihilation coming at it. I also know that miracle will arrive. Providence won’t allow the Mohammedans and Communists to annihilate His Chosen, just like Providence did not allow the Soviet Union and NAZI Germany to annihilate His Chosen, just like Providence did not allow Rome to annihilate His Chosen, just like Providence did not allow Babylon to annihilate His Chosen.

Israel must stand on her own and must turn to Providence for protection, two seemingly contradictory statements which aren’t. But the US must stand beside Israel — making a third seemingly contradictory statement which isn’t. There are many reasons why the US must stand beside Israel, some spiritual, some economic, some survival. But even if the anti-Israeli radical Left (such as Barack Obama and Perry Hood (look up his name tied to this site for reference) and most of the Democrat leadership) leave Israel to fend for herself — a fool’s game for the radical Left — Israel must and shall fend for herself. And that could very well include Israel delivering a preemptive strike against Iran, which this site fully supports, but I fear with Barack Obama in charge, he might actually order the US to shoot down Israeli planes.

I decided when Obama was elected President, the End Times instantaneously got 40 years closer. Should Israel decide to fly against Iran and Obama decide to shoot Israeli planes out of the air or help Iran defend against an Israeli preemptive, self-survival attack, then the End Times will have moved up to “The next Presidential elections will take place during the Tribulation” stage. And with Obama’s anti-Christian, Socialist agenda and with Iran’s “12th Mullah” agenda where they believe they can bring it about by violence against Israel and the US, the nearness of the End Times has always been forefront in my mind.

My heart goes out to Israel. And I pity the fool who speaks ill of Providence’s Chosen and in favor of the multi-century sworn enemies of Providence’s Chosen, because that fool has been cursed by Providence already.